


Birthdays

by Allons-y (sarabakanashimi)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, How cool is that, I write my own birthday fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:04:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarabakanashimi/pseuds/Allons-y
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler turns twenty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthdays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Allons-y (sarabakanashimi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarabakanashimi/gifts).



> Un-betaed, un-Brit-picked. Anything wrong? Tell me. I'm the girl who asks her Hotel guests to Brit-pick her English, I'm _so_ not afraid.

At some point, Rose turns twenty. It's bound to happen, even though one day she will be born in approximately two millennia and one day she's been dead for five billion years. In one particular occasion, she's both ten months and nineteen years old, though they never really speak about that time again.

The Doctor actually manages to get his timing straight (for once) and they enjoy a full-blown birthday party at the Powell Estate (even though Rose pouts and says that she's  _too old_  for a monstrous pink cake. Then she scoops up some whipped cream with her fingers, licks it absentmindedly and the Doctor must avert his gaze  _very very quickly_  and smile at Jackie as if he's really listening to her).

Rose sucks her finger and the Doctor doesn't look at her, or at the small bit of cream on her lower lip, but then she furrows her brow and goes all thoughtful, and the Doctor is kind of afraid of what she's thinking.

"Doctor... do you even have a birthday? I never asked."

Thing is, he kind of does and doesn't at the same time. The Time Lords wouldn't really bother with such trifles as birthdays, a way to mark the passing of time so achingly human and linear and simple to the point of ridicule. They would count years, yes, they even had a ceremony for coming of age, but the concept of birthdays would have stopped having any meaning by the time of someone's first regeneration.  
Oh and speaking of those. He's in his tenth life, shy of his first full millenium. Prodigious memory and all, he barely remembers being a boy, though he will never forget his coming of age, and looking into the Schism, but no, no birthday parties come to mind. There must have been something, though, as a child is a child wherever and whenever he is, human or variations thereupon.   
And, again, regenerations. Now he's so further down the line, he could count the date of each as a birthday (and it wouldn't be wrong), a new birthday with each face, the first and original one long forgotten.

Still, the thought has never really dawned on him, and yet he does love his festivities, human or otherwise.

None of this will do as an answer to Rose's question, though. She smiles, delicious laughter lines at the corner of her eyes, her mouth pink and luscious and smiling, the tip of her tongue poking through.

She's twenty today, and to her it's new and wonderful and slightly unnerving (her first round number since she turned ten, half her life ago, her age in solid double digits now when she recalls her single digits so well, as if it were yesterday), and what does she care about his complicated reasons when her question is human, and simple?

He smiles and says: "the day I met you at Henrik’s, when I took your hand and said  _run,_ remember?"

Of course she does. She will always remember. 

"The day you met me?" She lights up like the birthday candles on her monstrosity of cake, all pink frosting and rosettes and 'Happy Birthday, Rose' and it's guilty pleasure, because what is he doing giving her hope like this?

He nods and she's tickled and he knew she would be, and why shouldn't she? Her hand slides easily into his, a perfect fit, fingers entwined. 

She smiles again, lips like a ripe fruit and he wants to kiss her and taste strawberries and cream.

Jackie goes off to get more tea and Rose kisses him first, mouth sweet and soft against his, her free hand in his hair. The kiss is quick and short and leaves him longing for more, but Jackie’s steps approach again, and while the kiss breaks, their hands stay linked.

 He says 'Happy Birthday, then, Rose Tyler' and she smiles as if he were the best gift she ever received. He may have his qualms about this, and he may know or not know, care or not care whether he's got a birthday, or ten, or none. 

He's quite adamant about Rose Tyler being  _his_  perfect birthday present, if he ever got one. 


End file.
